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The long version of the story:<br>
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<h1>San Jose Mercury News (CA)</h1>
<h2>CHURCH CRITIC SEEKS PARDON</h2>
July 7, 2007
<br>
Section: Local
<br>
Edition: Morning Final
<br>
Page: 1B
<br>
MIKE ZAPLER, MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
<br>
<b>Illustration:</b> Photo<br>
<br>
<b>Caption:</b> PHOTO: Henson<br>
64-year-old longtime computer consultant is a former Silicon Valley
resident.<br>
<p><br>
Former Palo Alto engineer <b>Keith Henson</b>'s decade-long battle
with the Church of Scientology forced him into bankruptcy, sent him on
the lam to Canada to seek political asylum, and recently landed him in
a solitary jail cell in Riverside County.</p>
Friday, he asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to set him free.
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His crusade ultimately led to a misdemeanor conviction and six-month
jail sentence -- of which he has served about two months -- for
interfering with the rights of others to practice their religion.
Friday, his wife and daughter arrived in Sacramento after a two-day
drive that started in Arizona, and delivered a petition to
Schwarzenegger's office seeking a pardon, or short of that, a reduced
sentence.
''People react in different ways to things,'' Henson's wife, Arel
Lucas, said. ''Some people get angry, other people feel like walking
away. He got angry.''
Since May, Henson -- described by his wife as a compassionate man with
a boisterous laugh who ''likes to talk and project his thoughts about
the future'' -- has sat in a solitary jail cell in Riverside County.
Lucas said her husband's troubles are undeserved. He was only trying to
protect people, she said, from what he's convinced is a corrupt
organization.
A 64-year-old longtime computer consultant, Henson has pursued many
causes during his life, many outside the mainstream but all of them,
family members say, with the intensity of a scientist on the brink of a
big breakthrough. In the mid-'70s he helped found the L5 society that
was dedicated to creating a space colony where Henson hoped to live
someday. He has advocated cryonics, the practice of freezing people
with diseases in the hopes of reviving them once a cure is found.
Then Henson set his sights on Scientology. Scanning Internet news
groups in the mid-1990s, he was drawn to a page critical of Scientology
and quickly became convinced. With typical zeal, Henson set out to
expose the religion, which some critics charge operates more like a
cult, and things quickly escalated into a nasty, protracted battle.
A Schwarzenegger spokesman declined to comment, other than to say the
governor would give the petition the same careful consideration he does
other such requests.
Henson's troubles began when he posted on the Internet Scientology
documents about its approach to medical treatment. The church, which
closely guards its teachings, sued him for copyright infringement. In
1998, after a four-day trial before U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte,
Henson was ordered to pay $75,000 to the Religious Technology Center, a
wing of the Scientology organization.
''It's amazing the trouble you get into for trying to warn the public
about health hazards,'' Henson told the Mercury News after the verdict.
''This was just a loss of a battle in a larger war.''
Indeed it was. The fine forced Henson into bankruptcy, but he wasn't
ready to let go. Henson (who, after more than a decade living in
Silicon Valley, moved to Southern California) picketed Scientology
organizations around Los Angeles. According to his wife, he was roughed
up more than once and was a frequent target of death threats.
The Church of Scientology did not return calls requesting comment.
According to court documents, starting in May 2000 Henson staged daily
protests for nearly two months straight outside Golden Era Productions,
a Scientology facility in Riverside County that produces promotional
materials. Police arrested him July 19 of that year, and prosecutors
later alleged that he had threatened to bomb the building.
He was charged with three misdemeanors, two for allegedly making or
attempting to make terrorist threats, and one for allegedly interfering
with another's right to exercise civil rights, namely to practice
religion.
According to his wife, Henson worked for an explosives company in the
1970s and has experience with pyrotechnics. And he once jokingly
suggested online launching a ''Cruise missile'' at a Scientology
building -- a reference to actor Tom Cruise, an active church member.
But that's a far cry, she said, from being a terrorist. ''He never had
access to weapons of mass destruction or had the ability to launch
them,'' she said. ''He's not some kind of bomb-throwing, threatening
person. He never threatened anyone.''
The jury hung on the two terrorist charges but convicted Henson of
interfering with religion, a misdemeanor.
But shortly before his sentencing date in 2001, when he was expecting
to be sent to jail for six months, Henson bolted for Canada. According
to his wife, he feared that Scientologists would harm him in jail, and
so he accepted an invitation from a Canadian friend.
Barely a month later, shopping at a suburban Toronto mall, Henson was
surrounded by a police SWAT team and arrested, his wife said, for
failing to disclose his criminal status when he crossed the border.
After five days in a high-security jail, he was released. The reason:
Henson had applied for political asylum, claiming that if forced to
return to the United States, he faced injury or even death at the hands
of Scientologists.
Henson's petition for refugee status languished in the Canadian court
system for more than four years -- a period he spent working for
several computer firms and continuing to picket Scientology facilities
-- before being denied in mid-2005. Knowing he would soon be deported,
he slipped quietly back into the United States and stayed with friends
for a year before winding up in Prescott, Ariz., in September.
Henson spent the next five months writing, researching, working on his
house and -- perhaps not surprisingly -- posting critiques of
Scientology on the Web. He made his writings look as if they were
coming from a computer in Canada.
But Henson wouldn't manage to sidestep the law much longer. In
February, he was arrested by undercover officers in Prescott -- he
believes Scientologists hired investigators to track him down -- and
later was deported to California to begin the jail sentence he had
avoided for so long.
Will Henson continue the fight after his jail term? Moments after
leaving the state Capitol on Friday, clutching letters from supporters
in her hand, Lucas said she doubts her husband's crusade will resume
anytime soon.
''His lawyer thinks he's going to have to cool it.''
<br>
<br>
SCIENTOLOGY<br>
A brief description of the Church of Scientology.
A religious group founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and
based on his book ''Dianetics,'' published in 1950. Scientologists
believe that the individual is first and foremost a spirit, or thetan,
and that thetans can be cleared of negative energy through a process
called auditing. The spiritual counselors who provide this service are
called auditors. In part because members are charged fees to receive
auditing, Scientology's tenets have been challenged and its practices
investigated by governmental agencies around the world. The Church of
Scientology's non-profit status in the United States was the subject of
legal wrangling for many years, but currently the Internal Revenue
Service accepts the church's tax-exempt status.
Source: Religionlink</td>
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spike wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid200707090153.l691rajY018034@lily.ziaspace.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
This is a shortened version, perhaps 20% of the text that was in Saturday's
dead trees version of the Merc. I don't know where to find a full text
online version of that article. I didn't get today's (Sunday's) paper.
Lets see if the governator will terminate Keith's sentence or grant a
paaahdon.
spike
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">-----Original Message-----
From: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org</a> [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:extropy-chat">mailto:extropy-chat</a>-
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:bounces@lists.extropy.org">bounces@lists.extropy.org</a>] On Behalf Of Joseph Bloch
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 6:25 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: Re: [ExI] keith in the news again
There's a relatively brief story from the Saturday paper here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6322465">http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6322465</a>
(I'm guessing the longer article from the Sunday paper will be available
on
the web tomorrow.)
Joseph
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.josephbloch.com">http://www.josephbloch.com</a>
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">-----Original Message-----
From: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org</a> [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:extropy-chat">mailto:extropy-chat</a>-
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:bounces@lists.extropy.org">bounces@lists.extropy.org</a>] On Behalf Of spike
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 2:28 AM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: [ExI] keith in the news again
There is a long article about Keith in today's San Jose Merky News.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">Unlike
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">his Palo Alto treatment, this one is relatively fair and balanced. It
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">is
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">about his efforts to get a pardon from Aaaahnold. Lets hope for the
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">best
on
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">that.
spike
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre>
</blockquote>
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